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# fdisk -l

Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x3b7e273f

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1   *        2048      206847      102400    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda2          206848   266242047   133017600    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sda3       266242048   976771071   355264512    7  HPFS/NTFS/exFAT

Is there a way to find out on which of the listed partitions is my linux distribution installed on?

I installed it with Wubi. Ubuntu is my distribution.

I'm aware of a similar question here, but it doesn't seem to provide a concise answer.

4
  • Are you on your Ubuntu partition right now running Ubuntu? (or some other linux distro?) And what release are you running?
    – Oyibo
    Jul 23, 2012 at 9:26
  • Yes, I'm running it right now. I don't know which partition is it. Release; Linux ubuntu 3.2.0-23-generic #36-Ubuntu SMP Tue Apr 10 20:39:51 UTC 2012 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
    – Tool
    Jul 23, 2012 at 9:28
  • enter link description hereHello there, I am new to Ubuntu. I am attaching my Ubuntu Storage Device and GParted snapshot with this post. My question here is, where would be our data files (var/www/ ... ), in which Partition (/dev/sda1/ or /dev/sda6/). What is /dev/sda5/ linux-swap. Where to see other partition?
    – user162669
    May 29, 2013 at 5:51
  • You could check /host. Source: superuser.com/questions/136945/… Oct 22, 2021 at 8:17

3 Answers 3

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In a terminal, run the command df and look at the output. The column headed "Mounted On" will have a "/" against the partition that holds your root filesystem. This is where your system is installed.

3
  • It appears to be installed on /dev/loop0. I have a follow up question though. If I want to install GRUB (lets assume I don't have it), would grub-install /dev/loop0 work? Since loop0 is a virtual partition, not a physical one.
    – Tool
    Jul 23, 2012 at 9:51
  • I haven't installed linux on a loop device myself. It is my understanding that it loop0 is actually a filesystem within a file. I am afraid I don't know how grub works in this situation, sorry. Here's some info on loop devices in wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_device
    – Jazz
    Jul 23, 2012 at 12:19
  • Since this is a WUBI install, you just see the loop device, which is a file on one of those Windows partitions. IIRC, you instead need to look where /host is mounted.
    – psusi
    Jul 23, 2012 at 13:18
7

Ok so if you're running Ubuntu 12.04 you should have GParted (a partitioning tool) installed, to find it click on the Ubuntu launcher icon and type GParted and it should show up like this:

Click on it and then you should get something like this:

Your Ubuntu partition will be on the one which has / in the mount point column. Windows usually takes primary partitions so Ubuntu is not likely to be /dev/sda1 or /dev/sda2, but feel free to post a screenshot of what your GParted shows if you need more help. Ubuntu is usually installed on ext File Systems as shown as an example in my screenshot above.

2
  • I actually don't have any rows with '/' as their mount point in gparted. But, using df I found out that my Ubuntu is installed on /dev/loop0 and gparted doesn't appear to show that.
    – Tool
    Jul 23, 2012 at 9:48
  • 2
    ah yeah I misunderstood your question, didn't read properly that you were using Wubi, the other answer is far better in this case :)
    – Oyibo
    Jul 23, 2012 at 10:45
0

The non=NTFS partitions are where your ubuntu is. Since windows cannot deal with EXT4 file system, the above screen from windows is not useful to you to determine much about Ubuntu drives. Use GPARTED screen for that. I have a similar setup with ubuntu and windows dual boot. I have created two other partitions to store my backups. One has windows partition backup and one has ubuntu backup. I boot of ubuntu live CD and use FSARCHIVER to make a ubuntu backup. I use Ghost (old 2003) version to make a backup of windows partition. Ubuntu backup seems to take care of GRUB and it seems to take it from sda1. If the whole system conks out and now you can't boot, generally using system rescue CD, I am able to boot off the existing Ubuntu and then use Sudo update-grub to make grub and ubuntu functional again. Generally that brings back my windows booting ability too. Hope this helps.

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